ARGE EPD
ARGE's industry representative EPD / Sustainability of construction works
In 2016 ARGE presented industry representative Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) for 14 building hardware products. These EPD were published by ARGE's program operator IBU (Institut Bauen Umwelt) Berlin, Germany. IBU is a maindriver of the ECO platform, an europeanwide initiative for the mutual recognition of national EPD programs.
ARGE-EPD can be used by all manufacturers being a member of one of ARGE's member associations. As a basis for the ARGE-EPD, IBU published Product Category Rules (PCR) for construction hardware according to the rules of EN15804+A1:2013.
Due to a new mandate of the European Commission services to CEN/TC350, the standard for EPD is about to get reviewed deeply. The work is driven by the political idea to introduce the so called PEF (product environmental footprint) system to all Life Cicle Assessments (LCA) for products put on the common market of the EU. This includes EPD for construction products.
In parallel, the Construction Products Regulation (CPR) is about to get reviewed in general. An additional basic requirement for construction works dealing with sustainability shall be introduced to the system.
This will substancially change format and content of LCA data for construction products in future including recent EPD data based on PCR according to EN15804+A1.